Cowtown Chocolate (Cup)cake(s)

Monday was not the best of days for me. On my way to work, I somehow managed to lose the necklace I had been wearing, at work I tripped over my laptop cord and sent it flying (with only minor cosmetic damage; Claire's watching a movie on that laptop as we speak), and then on my way home work the train stopped and we were told to get out because the last station (the closest to our apartment) was closed. So once I'd made the trek home (not too tragic: only a 25-minute walk rather than a 10-minute walk), I was ready for some Cupcake Therapy.

I think it's true for a lot of bakers that it's the process of baking, not necessarily the product, that is soothing.

That's really true for me: assembling the ingredients, melting, mixing, separating, beating...it's a happy process because it has predictable outcomes. And it smells good.

Because I wanted process rather than product, I turned the Cowtown Chocolate Cake, which is normally a layer cake, into cupcakes. I just halved the recipe and reduced the cooking time.

I knew that this would be a good recipe because it had my stamp of approval on it: a red moose in the shape of an M that my cousin Catie gave me when I was maybe in my early teens. A lot of my cookbooks have that stamp of approval.

My past self was right: This is a very good cake recipe. Two kinds of chocolate in the cake can't hurt, and then this was topped by a really nice ganache made from unsweetened chocolate (well, since I've almost run out of Baker's, I used 86% and cut down on the sugar).

Apparently this is a famous Texas recipe. All I know is that the cupcakes were fun to make and made a nice Valentine's Day treat. I would make them again even on a good day!

Here's the recipe: double it if you want to make a full-on layer cake. You'll probably have more frosting than you need for the cupcakes, but I trust you'll find some way to use it.

Cowtown Chocolate Cake

2.5 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter, room temperature

2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. instant espresso

1/2 t. vanilla

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) sugar

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) brown sugar

2 egg yolks (save a white! and use the other white to make these)

3/4 c. (3 oz.) sifted flour

10 T. (5 oz.) buttermilk

1 egg white

Heat the oven to 350. Line about 10 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl--about 1 minute in 30-second bursts. Cream the butter with the cocoa, baking soda, salt, espresso, and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add the sugars and beat for 2-3 more minutes until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each. Mix in the melted chocolate and beat until smooth. On low speed or by hand, stir in the flour in 3 additions interspersed with the buttermilk in two additions; mix just until incorporated each time. In a separate small, clean bowl and with clean beaters, beat the egg white until stiff. Fold it carefully into the cake batter. Portion among the muffin cups and bake for about 30 minutes--check after 25 or so. A toothpick should come out clean. Let cool on a rack while you make the frosting.

1/2 c. (4 oz.) cream

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) sugar

Pinch salt

2.25 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter

1/2 t. vanilla

In a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream, sugar, and salt to a boil. Turn down the heat and let the mixture simmer 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Take the pot off the heat and add the chocolate and butter; stir until it is all melted and smooth. Stir in the vanilla.

Cool the frosting over an ice-water bath or in the refrigerator until it has become cool and a bit thicker. Use a mixer to beat it for a few minutes until it becomes a lighter color. Frost the cupcakes as you see fit. Share them with someone you love.

Carrot Cake

If Alicia were reading/posting on this blog, I would be sure to hear plenty of righteous indignation about what I did with this recipe, as I did when I made cupcakes from the chocolate layer cake recipe. And maybe I will still get a dose of indignation. You see, instead of the three-layer masterpiece with the marzipan carrots on top that you see front and center on the cover of Maida's cookbook, I made a snack cake. A delicious snack cake.

There are only four people in our house, and we had three cakes in the house this week. Two of them are my fault, I admit. But we weren't having a party, and I have limited refrigerator space and even more limited freezer space. So carrot snack cake it was. And we were all happy.

Making a carrot snack cake is about easy as making muffins. Once you've grated the carrots, you've done half the work. This cake involves raisins but not pineapple, which a lot of recipes include but I don't really "get". I liked the raisins because they mean there's more cake for me.

OK, so far, no beauty contests. And look! You can still see the carrots. To me, that's a plus. I want to firmly believe I'm eating health food here.

Oh, oops. Not so healthy after all. Cream cheese and butter.

I need to figure out what it is about French cream cheese that makes it so liquidy upon beating into a frosting. I really don't want to pay 3 times the going rate for the real Philadelphia stuff.

So it's dripping and running. So we couldn't wait for the cake to chill as Maida implored us to do. We cut it warm (well, room temperature) from the pan and devoured it--or at least some of it. And it was (still is!) good. It's good both warm and cold. And there's room in my fridge for a square pan. At least until the next cake comes along...

Here's the recipe as I made it. If you double the recipe, you can make a three-layer masterpiece. You'll need to chill the layers before frosting because they're delicate. And I'm sure there's a website out there somewhere that will show you how to make marzipan carrots...

Carrot (snack) Cake

2 large eggs

1 t. vanilla

1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) sugar

1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) brown sugar

10 T. (5 oz.) vegetable oil--I used a bit of hazelnut oil and the rest grapeseed oil

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 t. cinnamon

1-1/2 t. cocoa powder

1 c. minus 1 T. (3.75 oz.) flour--I used about 1/3 whole wheat flour

1/2 c. (2.5 oz.) raisins

1/2 c. (2.7 oz.) coarsely chopped walnuts

2 c. (8 oz.) shredded carrots

Heat the oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9-inch square pan. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, sugars, oil, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa powder until everything is well mixed. Now switch to a wooden spoon and mix in the flour--again, just until mixed. Throw in the raisins, walnuts, and carrots and mix those in, too. Easy, right? Pour that into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes (check after 20 minutes just in case) or until a toothpick come out clean. Let the cake cool to room temperature while you bring the cream cheese and butter to room temperature. Then make the frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese (light is fine, though it will make a thinner frosting)

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter

1/2 t. vanilla

1 c. (4 oz.) sifted powdered sugar

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and sugar and beat some more until smooth. Spread the frosting on the cooled cake and try to restrain yourself. You should probably store the frosted cake in the refrigerator.

Kentucky Cake

A couple of milestones in this post: 1) I believe we've had the blog going for a year now! Happy birthday to us. 2) I have officially closed out a section of the book: this is the last of the layer cakes! And hooray for that, in my humble opinion. Though I love cake, layer cakes can be a PITA. They make a ton, so you need a special occasion to make them. And you have to frost them. Frosting cakes is my bane. I almost always have someone else do it for me. Let's just say that I'm not a food stylist.

However, I got lucky on this cake, even though it's a big project: it was Dad's birthday, and we were having lots of dinner guests. Also, it turns out that Sharmyn is an expert cake froster. Finally, and most importantly, even though I had huge doubts about this recipe, it was really delicious!
The cake has two entirely different layers, which means mixing and baking one layer, washing the mixer, and starting again. One layer, which you'll see most of, is the dark layer: it's kind of a spice cake with chopped raisins, just to bring joy to Alicia's heart.

Mmm...spicy, raisin-y goodness.

When the cake comes out of the oven, you can choose to brush it with bourbon. Dad had this ancient bottle of Ten High that dates back probably to the 80s (my grandmother was a bourbon drinker, but no one else in the family touches it), so it had lots of flavor but probably little alcohol. I recommend the bourbon option.

There's also a "white layer;" this is lemon cake. I had trouble with this one, probably because my butter wasn't up to temperature. Dad asked if it was a tortilla. Not a good sign.

The batter was so stiff that the egg whites lost all their lift. If I were to make this again, I would do the Cake Bible reverse creaming method: make sure the butter is totally room temperature, then mix together all the dry ingredients, including the sugar; mix in the butter and half of the wet ingredients and beat for a couple of minutes; then add the remaining wet ingredients in 2-3 additions and beat for a long time until very fluffy. It makes a very tender cake and probably would have worked like a charm here.

The cake is filled and frosted with a fabulous 7-minute frosting. The recipe makes twice as much as you'll need. Didn't Sharmyn do a great job?

After a certain number of birthdays, you only need one candle.

You see the two layers: the white layer doesn't seem quite as puny now. Everyone seemed to really enjoy this, and indeed it's not your typical birthday cake.

Here's the recipe. Make it when you have a lot of time and a lot of guests.

Kentucky Cake

3 oz. (6 T.) butter, softened (you'll need 6 oz. butter all together, so go ahead and get 2 sticks out of the fridge)

1/4 t. salt

1/3 t. (do your best with a 1 t. measure) baking soda

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/8 t. cloves

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. mace (if you don't have mace, use a little more nutmeg)

1/4 t. allspice

1/4 t. dry mustard

1/3 c. (2.3 oz) brown sugar

2 large egg yolks (save the whites for the other layer)

1/3 c. (2.7 oz.) buttermilk

1/3 c. (3.8 oz.) molasses

1 c. (4 oz) sifted flour

1/3 c. (1.7 oz) raisins, chopped fairly fine

1 T. bourbon (optional)

2 T. blackberry jam (optional)

Heat the oven to 375. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, line with parchment circles, and grease and flour them again. Set them aside.

Cream the butter with the salt, baking powder, and spices until fluffy. Add the brown sugar and beat 2-3 minutes until fluffy again. Add the egg yolks and once again give that a good beating. On low speed beat in the buttermilk and molasses just until incorporated, then give the bowl a good scraping before adding the flour and again mixing just until barely incorporated. Scrape down the bowl and add the raisins.

Pour this into one of the cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top springs back when gently pressed. Cool for 2-3 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool. Brush the cake with bourbon while it is still warm. If you want to do a layer of blackberry jam (not part of Maida's recipe, but really good), heat the jam for about 30 seconds in the microwave, then spread it over the cake.

Now wash your mixer bowl and get ready for the second layer.

3 oz. (6 T.) butter, room temperature

1/8 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. vanilla extract

1 t. lemon extract (probably worth getting for this recipe)

2/3 c. (4.6 oz) sugar

Grated rind of 1 large lemon

1/3 c. (2.7 oz.) milk

1 c. (4 oz.) sifted flour

2 egg whites

1 T. bourbon (optional)

I'm giving the directions more or less as they are in the book, but if you are familiar with the reverse creaming method, let me once again recommend that you try that.

Cream the butter with the salt and baking powder. Then add the vanilla and lemon extracts, sugar, and lemon rind and beat for 2-3 minutes until very fluffy. On low speed, gradually mix in 1/3 of the flour, then the milk, then the remaining flour. Now, in a clean bowl with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until they hold a firm shape. Bit by bit, fold the egg whites into the butter mixture, trying to keep as much of the air as possible. Gently pour into the second prepared pan and bake that for 25 minutes (mine took only 20 minutes), again until the cake springs back when pressed gently.

Let the cake stand for a couple of minutes, then turn out to cool on a rack. Brush with the bourbon while the cake is still warm.

While the cake layers are cooling, take a deep breath and get ready to make 7-minute icing.

4 egg whites (about 1/2 c.; if you have leftover egg whites in your freezer, this is a good use for them. Just thaw them first.)

1-1/2 c. (10.5 oz) sugar

1/4 c. + 1 T. (2.5 oz.) cold water (I used about 2 T. lemon juice as part of this)

1 t. cream of tartar

1/8 t. salt

1 t. vanilla

1/2 t. lemon extract

Get out a fairly large bowl that fits over an even larger pot. Basically, you're going to form a sort of double boiler. Also get out a handheld electric mixer. If you have a double boiler, it's probably too small for this application. Put enough water in the pot so that the bowl does not touch the water, and heat the water to a simmer over medium heat.

Put the egg whites, sugar, water, cream of tartar, and salt in the bowl and put that over the water. Turn on the mixer and immediately start beating the egg whites at high speed for about 5 minutes; the mixture will form stiff peaks. Take the bowl off the water and add the vanilla and lemon extracts. Beat for a couple more minutes. You'll want to use this quickly.

Put the dark layer on your cake plate and put a fairly thick layer of frosting on that. Top with the white layer and frost the cake however you feel is appropriate. Enjoy the remaining frosting in your favorite way--we enjoyed it over graham crackers.

Serve with or without birthday candles to your appreciative guests.

Boston Cream Pie and Baking Together

Alicia and I had the (unfortunately rare) pleasure of spending a few days together in San Diego last week. We went to the beach and walked and rode Segways, and of course we ate lots and lots of good food--mostly good Mexican food, which we won't be able to get in France.

We also took the opportunity to do a bit of a baking project together: Boston Cream Pie.

Alicia and I have always loved this dessert, which is not a pie but seems to have been invented by a French chef at the Parker House restaurant in Boston. Alicia was recently in Boston and saw a plaque announcing the Parker House as the birthplace of the Boston Cream Pie (and, of course, the Parker House roll). It's a sponge cake filled with vanilla pudding/pastry cream and topped with chocolate glaze.

As Maida points out in the headnotes, it's a simple dessert but not an easy one to make. The pastry cream took FOREVER to put together (Alicia seems to have spent a good half hour standing over the stove whisking the milk and flour mixture), the sponge cake (which I made) is a rather fussy little genoise, and there's lots of chilling time involved. Fortunately, the chocolate glaze (which Alicia made) is a piece of cake to put together. The cake took so long to make that we weren't able to eat it the same day we made it. We saved it for Sunday breakfast.
This is what awaited us when we showed up at Alicia's house Sunday morning. Mmmm...look at all that chocolate!

You can see all the yumminess on the beautiful Blue Minton plate that Alicia uses on a regular basis.

The cake disappeared within about 10 minutes. There were about 10 of us, and we were hungry, and the cake was really good. That's my daughter scraping the last crumbs and drops of glaze off the cake plate. The only issue some of us had with the cake was with the almond extract--I found that it was too strong. I personally would use only vanilla extract in the pastry cream.

Here's the recipe. Make it when you have plenty of time and patience.

Boston Cream Pie

2 large eggs

1/4 c. + 1 T. (1.25 oz.) sifted flour

1/4 t. salt

2/3 c. (4.6 oz.) sugar

2 c. (16 oz.) milk

1 t. vanilla

1/4 t. almond extract (optional)

2 T. (1 oz.) butter, cut into pieces

Beat the eggs in a small bowl; set aside. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Gradually beat in the milk, whisking the whole time to avoid lumps of flour. Put the saucepan over medium (maybe medium-high, if you're careful) heat and whisk constantly for a really long time until the mixture comes to a boil and starts to thicken. Remove the pan from the heat and spoon a bit of the hot milk mixture into the eggs and whisk. Keep adding milk to eggs until you've added about half (or until you have no more room in your small bowl). Now return the egg/milk mixture to the saucepan. Put the pan back over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, for another 2 minutes. Take back off the heat and add the butter and extracts. I would recommend straining the mixture into a bowl and let it cool (put plastic or waxed paper on top to keep a skin from forming) and then refrigerate it for at least an hour. Or you can put the bowl in a bigger bowl filled with ice and water, which will chill it faster.

While you're waiting for the pudding to cool, make the cake.

1 c. (4 oz.) sifted flour

1 t. baking powder

2 eggs, separated

1/4 t. salt

2/3 c. (4.6 oz.) sugar

1 t. vanilla

1 T. lemon juice

2 T. cold water

3 T. (1.5 oz.) melted butter

Heat the oven to 350. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan; line it with parchment or waxed paper, then grease and flour it. Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside.

In one medium bowl (this is a good recipe to use a hand mixer), whip the egg whites and salt until foamy. Add half the sugar gradually and beat until you have just barely stiff peaks.

In another, perhaps larger, bowl, beat the egg yolks and remaining sugar at high speed until the mixture is very light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and lemon juice, and then beat in the water at low speed. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites in a few additions, quickly and not too thoroughly. Put a sifter or a sieve over the mixture and then sift the flour over the mixture, folding as you sift. Finally fold in the melted butter until just barely incorporated. Pour this into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the top springs back when pressed gently. When the cake comes out of the oven, cut around the sides and let cool on a rack for about 5 minutes before unmolding it onto a rack.

When the cake is cool, refrigerate it for about 10 minutes before slicing it in half horizontally. Spread the chilled pastry cream on the bottom layer and then top with the top layer. Chill while you make the chocolate glaze:

4 oz. semisweet chocolate (chips are OK for this)

1/4 c. (2 oz.) cream

Chop the chocolate and put in a medium bowl. Heat the cream in the microwave for about 1 minute (watch it carefully--cream boils over fast). Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for about 30 seconds before you stir it--the chocolate should melt and become smooth and beautiful. Let that cool for about 10 minutes. Then pour the glaze over the cake. You might have drippage, as Alicia did, but never fear--there will be someone there to wipe up the spill. Serve cold, and prepare for no leftovers.

Prune and Walnut Layer Cake

Welcome to my third (and final!) kitchen in Pontlevoy! This one is not as well equipped as the last one, and I sure do miss the microwave, food processor, and dishwasher! But this kitchen is fairly roomy and has a large table for prep work. It will do.

So blurry. Note the flea-market collection of furnishings.

One of my favorite parts of this kitchen is the refrigerator! I can actually fit some stuff in there, including a cake! Of course, it's now completely full. Note that we've just moved in and already it's full and cluttered. As our friend Dirk said as we settled in for dinner the day we moved, "You would never know you hadn't been here for weeks." Thanks--I think.

OK, ignore the clutter. Note the fireplace in the kitchen. No, I haven't had the guts to try it out. The stove is electric and the oven is pretty small. Also, it has very imprecise temperature markings, which should make things a bit of a challenge. But hey, it works. And so I made my first blog dessert here last week.

Let me just say a word about prunes. I love the prunes of France. So sweet and juicy. Julia goes through bags of them. So I was pretty stoked to make a prune cake, actually. But this one calls for stewed prunes, and I wasn't quite sure how to stew prunes. I ended up just soaking these in boiling water until they were soft. I think the result was very good.

Note also that while the recipe calls for buttermilk and sour cream, I used mostly plain yogurt and a bit of crème fraîche. That seemed to work fine.

Here are the frosting ingredients. Cream cheese plus butter plus cream plus eggs. And chocolate. Over the top, anyone? But it's really delicious. I couldn't get my cream to whip properly, so the frosting was perhaps not as mousse-y as it should have been. But let me repeat--it was delicious. It could be a dessert unto itself.

Um, a few deviations from the recipe worth noting. First of all, the recipe is for a three-layer cake. I have one cake pan; thus it became a one-layer cake once I'd halved the recipe. No problem. Second, if I had read the recipe correctly, I would have seen that I was supposed to have separated my egg (my one-and-a-half egg) and whip the egg white. Oops! Maybe my cake would have been a bit lighter had I done that. I think the texture was just fine, though.

Finally, as you see in the picture, I really need to learn that silicone pans do in fact need to be greased and floured. However, with enough frosting, no-one has to see the mess, and this way I could taste-test the cake.

Here's what was left over from the party I had--grilled burgers, potato salad, and cake. People seemed to like, not love the cake. One guest swore he could taste rum in it. I didn't mention the prunes, and no-one seemed to notice them. That could be good, since they're a controversial fruit for some.

I really liked this cake. With the heavy chocolate and all the walnuts, it reminded me of the rocky road eggs we used to get at Easter. And the prunes and spices added a nice touch. I think the cake recipe would make really good muffins as well.

Here's the recipe. If you have three cake pans and a lot of guests, make the full thing. Maida suggests decorating it with milk chocolate curls and powdered sugar. If you don't have quite so many pans or guests, cut the recipe in half.

Prune and Walnut Layer Cake

12 oz. pitted prunes, soaked until soft in boiling water
8 oz. (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cloves (for the spices, I used a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves)
2 T. cocoa powder
1 t. vanilla
1-3/4 c. (12 oz.) sugar
3 eggs, separated
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. sour cream
3 cups minus 2 tablespoons (11.5 oz.) sifted flour
8 oz. (2 cups) walnuts, cut, broken, or bought in medium-sized pieces

Heat the oven to 350. Get out three 9-inch cake pans, butter them, line them with parchment circles, then butter and flour them. (While you’re getting everything ready, now’s a good time to get the cream cheese and butter for the frosting out of the fridge)
Drain and chop the prunes with a knife or with scissors (I did mine with scissors).
Cream the butter with the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cocoa until soft and fluffy. Add the vanilla and then gradually add 1-1/2 cups sugar and beat for about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks and give it another couple of minutes. On low speed add the flour in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk and then the sour cream. Finally, stir in the prunes and walnuts.
If you remembered to separate your eggs, beat them until frothy and then gradually add the sugar before beating them just to stiff peaks. Fold them into the batter. Divide the batter into the three cake pans and bake 35-40 minutes (my single cake pan that had a half recipe in it only took 25 minutes or so. But who knows what my oven temperature really was?). Let cool for about 5 minutes and then turn out onto racks. Take the paper off, then carefully flip each layer over. Cool completely.
Now it’s time to make the killer frosting:

14-16 oz. semisweet chocolate (I used 7.5 oz. for my half recipe)
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
8 oz. (2 sticks) butter, also room temperature
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. + 2 T (4.4 oz.) sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 cup cream
Pinch salt
You’ll need one large mixing bowl and two small ones, as well as some willingness to wash dishes. Melt the chocolate either in the microwave, in 30-second bursts, or on the stove over low heat. A double boiler is not necessary if you use low enough heat and have a decent pot. Set aside to cool a bit.
Cream the butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and 1/2 cup sugar and beat some more. Now add the melted chocolate and beat until the sugar has dissolved. Then add the egg yolks and beat at high speed until the mixture is very smooth and somewhat lighter.
Now, rinse off your beaters or get out your hand mixer and whip the cream in one of the smaller bowls. Maida says to beat it until it’s almost but not quite butter.
In your last small bowl, you’re going to beat the egg whites. Make sure your beaters are really clean now. Add a pinch of salt to them and beat until frothy. Now add the remaining 2 T. sugar and beat the egg whites until they hold a shape. Now start folding in the fluffy stuff: first the whipped cream in two additions, followed by the egg whites. Try not to eat this stuff with a spoon.
Fill and frost the cake with this mousse however you see fit and refrigerate it. Serve it cold in small slices. And give some love to the prune.

Pecan Sweet Potato Pound Cake

Baking American desserts in France involves a lot of obsessing on my part. Will I be able to find all the appropriate ingredients? Do I have the right equipment? Will the recipe work if I need to tweak it? Am I using the right kind of flour? Every time we go to a big store, not just the little "superette" here in town, I scour the shelves for specialty ingredients that I might need for one of the blog desserts. Right now my quest is for tapioca, but I suppose that can wait...
So the Pecan Sweet Potato Cake was a bit of a challenge for me. The pecans were not a problem, because I had imported a lot. The sweet potato turned out also to be less of a challenge than I had thought--many market vendors sell them here. I found a particular kind of coconut that is more like American sweetened coconut and less like the usual powdery unsweetened kind you get in France.

So here are all my carefully culled ingredients. Note that French sweet potatoes, like the African ones, are white rather than orange. I think they're also a bit less sweet. Not pictured here: the frosting ingredients.

Here's my pile of shredded sweet potato. Doesn't look too appetizing, does it? Fortunately, it baked up into a golden brown cake.

Oops, some of it stuck to the pan. I really should learn that you do actually have to grease a silicone pan. And note here that I made one big layer. This is supposed to be a three-layer cake, but I don't have three layer cake pans, so I made do. Sami was kind enough to split this horizontally for me so that we actually had two layers.

OK, this is my moment of glory. I was freaking out about how I would make the marshmallow frosting. I could not find any of these crucial ingredients/equipment: candy thermometer, corn syrup, cream of tartar. So I went on the Internet and did some research on 7-minute frosting, which this seemed to be, approximately. I looked here and here for the basic technique and then made it up as I went. I would have to go by time and texture rather than temperature, and I would somehow have to compensate for the lack of cream of tartar. Knowing that cream of tartar is an acid (I'm not sure where I picked that up), I squeezed the juice of half a lemon in with my egg whites, sugar, and a touch of water. Then I put my mixing bowl over a pot of simmering water, powered up the mixer, and set the timer for 5 minutes. You see the lovely results! I'm so proud.

Mmmm...cake with fluffy frosting and coconut. Does it remind you of something? Like the banana cake of a couple of months back?
This was good, but the banana cake was better. Julia, in her critique, said, "I don't see the point of the sweet potato in here. It's like a lot of these recipes, where she has you put weird ingredients in just to show you it can be done." Or something like that. An American sweet potato would probably give this more flavor, for sure. And I know that Alicia's towering three-layer delight will make my puny cake look very lame. But I'm not complaining. I got through the ingredient hurdle and the equipment hurdle and turned out a pretty darned good cake. The fact that there's only half a cake downstairs and we haven't had guests over (yet) speaks for something.

Here's the recipe. I'm going to give you the full Maida version with the candy thermometer, and then I'll try to recreate my half-assed 7-minute frosting.

Pecan Sweet Potato Pound Cake

1-1/2 c. (12 oz.) canola or salad oil (I used half melted butter)
Scant 2 c. (11 oz.) sugar
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 t. ginger
1 t. nutmeg
4 large eggs, separated
1/4 c. boiling water
1 t. vanilla
2-1/4 c. (9 oz.) sifted flour
1 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and shredded FINE (use the small holes on your grater)
6 oz. toasted pecans, broken in pieces (or TJ's fabulous pecan pieces)

1/3 c. apricot jam, heated and strained
7 oz. shredded coconut

Heat the oven to 350 and get out 3 8-inch layer cake pans. Butter them, line them with parchment, and butter and flour them. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, baking powder, salt, ginger, and nutmeg (you can use your electric mixer for this, but it's really not necessary). Add the egg yolks and beat to mix. Then add the boiling water and vanilla. Fold in the flour, and then add the sweet potatoes and pecans. Beat the egg whites until you get stiff peaks, then fold them into the batter in 2-3 batches. Divide the batter among the pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool in the pans for about 3 minutes; turn out onto racks and let cool. While they're cooling, you can heat (microwave for about 30 seconds) and strain your jam.

Now it's time to make frosting. This is Maida's recipe, which I was unable to try. You need an accurate candy thermometer.

1-1/2 c. sugar
2/3 t. (?) cream of tartar
2/3 c. water
1/8 t. salt
5 oz. (about 5) egg whites; these can be frozen (thawed) leftover egg whites.
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. almond extract

Put the sugar, cream of tartar, and water in a smallish saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Cover it and let the mixture boil for 3 minutes. Then uncover and put in your candy thermometer. Let it boil without stirring until it reaches 242. While it's boiling, put your egg whites and salt in your stand mixing bowl with the whisk attachment. When the syrup reaches 236, turn on the mixer and start beating until the egg whites are stiff. Once the syrup reaches 242, keep the mixer on high and pour the syrup in a thin, steady stream over the egg whites. Keep beating for 5 minutes while the icing gets thick and stiff. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and beat another couple of minutes. OK, now get ready to ice the cake.
Put a cross-hatch of waxed paper strips on your cake plate and put layer one of cake on top of that. Spread a thin layer of jam on there, then give it a 1/2-inch layer of frosting. Put the next layer on top and repeat with the jam and icing. Once you get to the top layer, put the jam on top, but then Maida says to start with the sides and then frost the top. She's probably right. In any case, make your frosting all pretty and swirly, then get out your coconut and do your best to press coconut all over the sticky white frosting. If you're lucky like me, you'll end up with white frosting and coconut all over your hands, which you will then have to lick. Serve and enjoy your masterpiece.

Maria's Half-Assed Seven-Minute Frosting (for a small two-layer cake)

3 oz. egg whites
5 oz. sugar
Pinch salt
Juice of half a lemon
about 2 T. water
1/2 t. vanilla
Dash of almond extract

You'll need a heatproof (not plastic) mixing bowl, a saucepan that the bowl can sit over, and a hand mixer for this. Heat a few inches of water in the saucepan over medium heat. Put your egg whites, sugar, salt, lemon juice, and water in the mixing bowl. Set it over the hot water and immediately turn on the mixer to high. Set a timer for 5 minutes and keep beating. After the 5 minutes is up, take the bowl off the saucepan (careful, it's hot!), add the vanilla and almond, and continue to beat another 2 minutes. You should have a bowl full of fluffy white goodness. It crusts over pretty fast, so you'll want to frost your cake soon.

Going over the top: Little Havana Coconut Ice Cream and Star-Spangled Banana Cake

If you know me, you know that I love having people over for dinner. "Dinner parties" would be saying too much, as that implies having centerpieces and set tables and a clean house and all. No, having people over for dinner is much more straightforward. I plot and plan and cook as much food as humanly possible, and Sami does the entertaining part. Fortunately we have the big open kitchen so that I can also chat with friends while I cook. I also make sure we have lots of munchies available because I've always overplanned and underprepared.

Thus Friday night. We had planned to have our friends Frank and Randolyn over. We've been trying to have them over since August, but what with our going to France all the time and their having kids and grandkids coming to visit and then Friday, a little thing called H1N1, it still hasn't happened.We keep hoping. Otherwise they'll have to come have dinner with us in France.
So when Randolyn, who had probably been hoping she'd get better so that we could finally do this thing, let me know that she was on strict bed rest, I kind of panicked. Of course I felt (and feel) terrible that she feels terrible, but also I had all kinds of party food and party plans going. Claire had even gotten the ice cream base started in the morning. So Sami, understanding husband that he is, found some wonderful pinch hitters.

So here it was, 4:00 in the afternoon, and all I had to do was 2 appetizers, a meat and 2 sides and 2 desserts. No problem. The problem was that I still had 20 pages of editing to do on a project due on Friday evening. D'ohhhh! So, priorities first, I got the cake in the oven. As Alicia points out, it is truly a "piece of cake" to make. No worries there. Then while it baked and Sami cleaned house all around me, I buckled down and worked on the editing, taking a few breaks now and then to take the cake out of the oven, slice and bake some cheese crackers, and do a few other chores. So I was still at the computer when our first guest came. It was Barry. Barry brings his laundry when he comes. We've renamed our guest room Barry's room. So that was no problem. I told him he could peel a few pounds of carrots while he was at it.

Long story short: Our other guests were fortunately quite late, and there was just a half hour of drinking and nibbling while I got stuff ready. The cake was baked, the ice cream mix was in the freezer doing a speed chill (not recommended, by the way), and dinner was just about ready. Whew!
What cracked me up was the frosting. We had eaten a delicious dinner, worked our way through a few bottles of wine, and now I still had to make 7-minute frosting, which I've never made before. Turns out, since I in fact used real egg whites left over from the OBSCENE amount of egg yolks in the ice cream, it was piece of cake. And this kind of frosting is so magical--from a little puddle of egg whites at the bottom of the mixture to the bowl filling up with this marshmallow fluffy stuff. Really cool.

You'll see from the pictures that it's probably not the greatest idea to fill and frost a cake when you've had a couple of glasses of wine.
But I tried to at least put on a show. Note the large amount of dirty dishes.
Ah, coconut. Love me some coconut. OK, my cake is not as beautiful as Alicia's.
But look at Maida's:

See that, with the ribbon? That's what it's *supposed* to look like. In my dreams, at least. You can also see many more desserts that mine will not look like. Oh, well.

Verdict on these two desserts? The banana cake is awesome. It was too sweet and fluffy for Claire (who I believe is turning into Pete), but the rest of us loved it. That sweet fluffy frosting is not my favorite, but it was pretty good here. As for the ice cream--well, it is over the top in and of itself. I made half a recipe, which means half and half and cream infused with coconut (and thus coconut oil) and then enriched with 6 egg yolks (which I cut down from 8). The US government could have fed this to Fidel Castro every day if they wanted to overthrow the regime quickly. It's delicious, and went with the banana cake really well, but Lord have mercy!
Let's just say that our guests waddled home feeling content. And I have a freezer full of lethal ice cream...

OK, here are the recipes. If you decide to go all out and make them both, start with the ice cream. Preferably the day before.

Little Havana Coconut Ice Cream

1-1/4 c. whipping cream
2 c. half and half (Maida wants you to use coffee cream, which is heavier--ha!)
6 oz. shredded sweetened coconut
1-inch piece of vanilla bean, if you feel like it
6 egg yolks (save the whites for your 7-minute frosting)
1/2 c sugar
1 T. Cream of Coconut (waste of the century--threw the rest away. Boy, is that nasty-looking stuff)

Heat 3/4 c. cream and the half and half in a medium saucepan. Add the coconut (and vanilla bean) and bring to a low boil over medium heat. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it sit for 30 minutes (I now realize there is no way Claire did this and still caught the bus for school). While it's sitting, get out a strainer, a mixing bowl, and a thin towel or old pillowcase; put the strainer over the mixing bowl and line it with the towel. Pour the coconut mixture into the strainer. Let it drain for a while, then twist and squeeze the towel so that all the coconut goodness can escape. Throw away the coconut. Now rinse out the saucepan or not, depending on how you feel about a few stray flakes of coconut in your ice cream, and put in the egg yolks, sugar, and Cream of Coconut. Whisk that together until it's thick and a bit lighter in color, then begin adding the warm cream mixture to it, whisking constantly. Keep your bowl and sieve handy. Put the custard over medium heat and cook and stir until the mixture starts steaming (or when it's thick enough to coat a spoon or when it reaches 178). Pour the mixture back through the sieve into the mixing bowl, and then add the remaining 1/2 cup cream. Let the custard cool at room temperature, then chill overnight. Or you could be lame like me and put it in the freezer to speed cool. Then just pour the stuff into your ice cream freezer and let it do its stuff. Be prepared to serve this in *tiny* portions. It would be dynamite with some roasted pineapple, I bet. This served 6 with lots left over.

Now the cake recipe:
Star-Spangled Banana Cake
(If you want Alicia's 4-layer extravaganza, just double the recipe)

6 T (3 oz.) butter, room temperature
1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
1/8 t. almond extract
1 c. (6.5 oz.) sugar
1-1/2 eggs (I used one egg and an egg white because of the ice cream situation)
10 oz. bananas (about 2-1/2), mashed with a fork
1/2 t. baking soda
3 oz. chopped toasted pecans (the Trader Joe's ones are excellent here, too)
1-1/2 c. (6 oz.) sifted flour (yes, I threw in about half whole wheat)
1/4 c. buttermilk

Heat the oven to 350; spray 2 9-inch cake pans. Cream the butter with the baking powder and the salt. Then add the extracts and gradually add the sugar. Beat for 2-3 minutes while you mash the bananas and get out the nuts and measure the flour. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well until the mixture is light and fluffy. Now mix the baking soda into the bananas and add that, along with the nuts. It seems so odd to add the nuts before the flour, but there it is. Mix that well. Then at low speed, add half the flour, then all the buttermilk, then the remaining flour. Mix until just barely incorporated, scraping in between as needed. Divide the batter between the pans. The layers will be pretty thin. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until top springs back when pressed and a toothpick comes out clean. Turn out the layers onto a rack and let cool.

Now it's time for the fun frosting:
Southern Fluffy White Icing

1-1/2 c. (10.5 oz.) sugar
2-1/2 T. (1.9 oz.) corn syrup
6 T. boiling water
3 egg whites
Pinch salt
1/2 t. vanilla
1/8 t. almond extract

3.5 oz. shredded coconut

Put the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a saucepan over moderate heat. Stir frequently with a wooden spoon until the sugar has dissolved. When the mixture comes to a full boil, remove it from the heat and set it aside for a minute. Now get out the whisk attachment of your big old mixer and whip the egg whites and salt until the whites are stiff--they "stand up straight when the beaters are raised." Pour the syrup into a glass measuring cup--mine fit into a 1-cup measure, though the 2-cup one probably would have been more comfortable. Then, while the egg whites are beaten at high speed, add the syrup in a slow, thin stream. Maida warns about overflowing icing; I didn't have that problem with the half recipe I present here. After all the syrup has been beaten in, add the extracts and continue to beat for about 15 minutes, until the icing is very stiff. I found that took more like 6-7 minutes. Now excuse me while I abdicate my responsibility of telling you how to frost a cake. I believe Deb over at smitten kitchen has a nice tutorial.
OK, I'm back now. Just sprinkle that baby with lots of coconut, close your eyes and pretend you put a ribbon around it, then dig in. This should feed at least 12 people.

Chocolate what? Cake

Here's how a party works around here. We have an exchange student from France staying with us for a few days. We found out that another friend also has a French exchange student, so we agreed to get the two girls together for dinner. But then our friend knew some other people with exchange students, so we invited them as well. Then I ran into another friend on campus and invited her family and exchange student. And then I ran into another friend at the farmer's market and invited him.

So what began on Wednesday as a dinner for 8 rapidly became a blowout for 20 on Thursday. But we find that if you invite the right people, you end up with a lot more food and booze making it into the house than you're going to need for all those people. Our refrigerator runneth over...We also had lots of kitchen help--at one point there must have been about six people cutting up tamales and making cheese plates and setting out fruit and frosting my cake. William, who frosted my cake, is welcome to come any time I make cake. He is 100 times more skilled than I. Again, I wish my camera were functional :-(.
Right, the cake: the cupcakes were pretty much gone, so I decided to make what I thought would be our next dessert: Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake. Aside from it having sauerkraut in it, it did look like a good cake for a crowd: a big 2-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I figured that the strong coffee and chocolate flavors in the cake, plus the pound of chocolate frosting, would offset any "ickyness" associated with the sauerkraut. After all, you have to be careful when you're cooking for Frenchies...
By the way, I still don't get the point of this recipe. The sauerkraut doesn't enhance the recipe; in fact, the recipe seems designed to mask the sauerkraut's taste. Was the origin a sauerkraut recipe contest? It's a mystery to me.
I made the cake pretty much to the letter, except for using about half and half dark and milk chocolate in the frosting. I was able to make the cake when no one was home, so no one could see the sauerkraut going into the cake batter. I pretty much had to avert my eyes as well, and that addition also kept me from licking the bowl, which is probably a good thing. Unfortunately for my bowl-licking propensities, the frosting had no sauerkraut in it.
Results: The cake was quite crumbly. I wish my camera worked so that you could see all the crumbs on the plate. One layer cracked and needed a lot of frosting to glue it together. But it's moist and chocolaty, and the frosting is really yummy (it's pretty much the same frosting as for the last cake). There's only about a quarter of the cake left over from last night, and no one said, "ew, what's in this cake?" So I would say it's a qualified success: not so bad for a novelty cake.

Here's the recipe, in case you have leftover sauerkraut:

Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake
2/3 c. (4 oz.) drained packed sauerkraut
2-1/4 c. (9 oz.) sifted flour
1/4 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. (1.5 oz.) Dutch-process cocoa
10 2/3 T. (5.3 oz.) unsalted butter, room temp.
1 t. vanilla
1-1/2 c. sugar (10 oz.)
3 large eggs
1 c. cold, strong coffee

Heat the oven to 350. Line two 9-inch round cake pans with parchment circles and then spray and flour them.
Rinse the sauerkraut and drain it. Squeeze it, but "don't overdo it." Pulse it in a food processor until it's in pretty fine pieces but not a purée.
Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa.
Beat together the butter and vanilla in the large bowl of an electric mixer. Then gradually add the sugar and beat about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each until it's well incorporated and scraping down the sides between each. Then alternately add the dry ingredients in three additions and the wet ingredients in two additions. Make sure it's all smooth, taste it now, and then remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the sauerkraut.
Divide the batter among the cake pans and smooth the tops. Bake for about 22-25 minutes, "until the tops of the cakes just barely spring back when pressed lightly with a fingertip. Do not overbake." (I think I did overbake; thus the crumbliness). Cool the pans on a rack for a few minutes, then invert onto the rack. Let the cake cool completely.

Frosting

16 oz. chocolate, some milk and some dark (I used most of a Ritter Sport milk bar, a Hershey's Symphony bar, and a Ghiradelli 60% bar)
1 c. sour cream

Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a big microwave-proof bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and microwave for another 30 seconds. Stir until everything is melted. Add the sour cream and beat by hand or with a mixer until smooth. Find someone to frost your cake for you, and use it (the frosting) right away.
Serves about 20 people, if you cut your pieces small enough.

Oops, you're supposed to refrigerate this! Maybe that's why it crumbled? I really should read my recipes. Must find room in fridge...

Forgive me, Maida, for I have sinned...

(something's wrong with my camera; this is the only picture that worked)

I was really impressed by your layer cake, Alicia! It looked great, and I'm sure your lucky recipients were thrilled to get some of it! I, however, was not ready to shell out for extra cake pans and such, and I haven't signed up a cake-eating crew yet, so I scaled this down. Wayyy down...I made a 1/4 recipe and turned it into cupcakes.
Let me tell you--this was not a popular decision among the family. Sami actually took his cupcake apart and then layered it for "the proper effect." I wish I'd gotten a picture of that. Julia informed me that it "wasn't the same." And she's right. But even so, these were darned fine cupcakes. Claire even told me that she wanted the same cupcakes for her birthday (the girl thinks ahead--her birthday's in April!) but with vanilla frosting--"the chocolate frosting is too rich, Mommy." OK, so three voices of complaint. So maybe next time I would just halve the recipe and make a two-layer cake.
The only other change I made was to use more dark than milk chocolate in the frosting (a matter of preference). What kind of chocolate did you use, Alicia? I found Ritter Sport on sale, and then I had some Milka semisweet left over from vacation. I think that chocolate had melted and cooled about 5 times before I used it. I also left out the walnuts. Actually, I was going to put walnuts in a couple of the cupcakes, but I forgot. I think they would have been good, but I have a lot of nut-haters in the family.
What Maida and Alicia point out is that when you're not out buying cake pans or looking for a clean pastry bag, this is a really easy recipe. Once the butter is soft, the batter is made by the time the oven is preheated. The frosting (which I made in the microwave, even though I have a double boiler) can be done before the cake is out of the oven. And it's really good--it's a model of the classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting that so many of us have had for our birthday cake. It's tender, buttery cake with really rich chocolate frosting. How could you go wrong? Well, you could subvert the original intention of the author. At the end of the recipe she writes, "Now, how about that? I salute you." I had the feeling I was getting the finger :-).

Here's the recipe I made:

American Chocolate Cupcakes

Cake
1 c. (4 oz.) sifted flour
1 t. baking powder
1 tiny pinch (1/16 t.) baking soda
1 tiny pinch salt
4 oz. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 t. vanilla
a few drops almond extract
scant 1/2 c (3.3 oz.) sugar
1 large and 1 small egg (1-1/2 large eggs)
3 T. milk

Heat oven to 350 and line 9 muffin cups with papers. Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda (which you could probably leave out), and salt in a small bowl. In the big bowl of your mixer, beat together the butter and extracts, then slowly mix in the sugar. Let that beat for 2-3 minutes. Then add the eggs one at a time, beating until well incorporated after each addition. That should take another 2-3 minutes. Then very carefully add the flour in three additions alternating with the milk in two additions (so 1/3 flour, beat for a couple of seconds. Scrape down, add half of the milk, beat for a couple of seconds. Repeat until everything's gone.). You should have a nice smooth batter, which you will enjoy licking from the beater. Spoon this into the muffin cups and bake for about 15-18 minutes until they're golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on racks.

Frosting (really a sour cream ganache, if you want to be picky about it)
4 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
3 oz. milk chocolate
Tiny pinch salt
1/4 t. vanilla
1/2 c. (4 oz.) sour cream

Break up the chocolate and put it into a microwave-proof bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and microwave another 30 seconds. It'll be mostly melted but a little clumpy. Just keep stirring and it'll be OK. Get out your hand mixer and add the salt, vanilla, and sour cream to the chocolate and beat it at low speed until it is "as smooth as satin." It really will be. Let it sit on the counter for an hour or so and then go to it. I just swirled mine on with a butter knife. I wish I'd had sprinkles.
Makes 9 delicious cupcakes that everyone will love if you don't tell them it was supposed to be layer cake.